


Old

by JRaylin441



Series: Briareus [16]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Roy trying really hard to be cool, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, it doesn't really work out for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7243342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRaylin441/pseuds/JRaylin441
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kain Fuery was really excited for the new kid, because it meant that he would no longer be the baby of Mustang's team. And then Ed actually showed up.</p>
<p><i>Jean recovered quickly. “Hey kid, cool trick. Wanna go out for drinks later? Get to know the team?” He waved a hand about the office to indicate </i>the team <i>in general and Kain felt some of the stress ease in his chest. Thank goodness for people who were brave enough to ask questions like that. After the most recent display, Fuery wasn’t sure he was up to talking to Fullmetal just yet.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Old

Kain was excited. Thrilled, actually. He was almost bouncing in his desk chair in anticipation. But no, that was hardly _mature_ and it was about time he started acting his age. He would hate for the new kid to get the wrong impression. The wrong impression being the idea that Kain Fuery was anything less than a full-blown adult. Honestly, the tech-head was getting tired of being treated like the baby of the office, just because he was a little baby-faced.

So. No bouncing in excitement.

A glance around the room ended with his eyes caught on Havoc’s. The man had probably been staring for a while, trying to catch Kain’s attention. Now that he had it, Jean loosed a giddy smile. He had been plotting various pranks and initiation ceremonies for the past few days. Since the colonel’s announcement that a new face would be joining the team.

Breda noticed the exchange of glances and was soon included, as the three of them grinned like loons in excitement. It was about time there was some fresh meat around here. The sound of a gun cocking suddenly found all of them remembering their work for a few minutes, but even the threat of Hawkeye’s rage couldn’t keep them down for long. After a few frantic movements, they were back to the exchange of half-heartedly covert glances.

The door rotated smoothly on its hinges, overriding all natural tendencies to creak in a way that only the colonel seemed capable of doing. Clearly, he was putting forth an effort for this one. His team straightened accordingly.

“This is the office where you will be required to file reports on your research.” An arm encased in blue fabric made a vague gesture through the doorway. It had to be intentional: the delay. Kain transferred his urge to bounce into a restlessly tapping foot. Far less conspicuous.

“Goody.” Apparently impatient, the new recruit shoved past the arm and strolled into the room. His hair was tied back in a lazy braid and his mouth tilted drolly to one side. One glance of cutting gold eyes made it clear that he could see they hadn’t been working. Within a moment, the entire room had been sized up and then claimed. The recruit reminded Kain of a feral tomcat.

He was also, of course, exceedingly short.

“How old did you say this kid was again, Chief?” Jean’s voice broke the silence that had been, until that point, subtly wrapping the room in its grip. In a flash, the kid’s dander was up. Between one blink and the next, he was across the room and slapping clapped hands to Jean’s desk. A wooden stake grew from the surface and rested lightly on Havoc’s Adam’s apple.

“Old enough to do the damn job.” The words came grinding out of a boy whose voice hadn’t dropped yet, and in a way that was answer enough. As Jean devoted his attention to _not moving_ , Kain studied the cocky grin on the kid’s face and its mirror on the colonel’s. Mustang was standing just inside the door, watching the proceedings as if they were a replay of a chess game he had already won. So that was why he’d been so happy for the past week. This kid must be important.

“Fullmetal.” A soft voice. A command. The boy, Fullmetal apparently, glanced over his shoulder at his new superior officer and rolled his eyes. Still, somehow the stake disappeared.

Jean recovered quickly. “Hey kid, cool trick. Wanna go out for drinks later? Get to know the team?” He waved a hand about the office to indicate the _team_ in general and Kain felt some of the stress ease in his chest. Thank goodness for people who were brave enough to ask questions like that. After the most recent display, Fuery wasn’t sure he was up to talking to Fullmetal just yet.

“’M underage.” His lip curled slightly in disgust. Now that he wasn’t making threats, Kain could hear a country drawl in the kid’s voice. “’Sides, I’ve got work to do.”

Breda appeared out of nowhere, as if summoned by the stench of someone trying to be productive. He slung an arm across narrow shoulders and let the boy take on quite a bit of his weight. Everyone politely overlooked the bewildered discomfort that the boy was currently displaying.

“Come on, kid. You’re in the military now. I’m sure we could pull some strings. It’s all in the name of team building, anyway. Right, Colonel?” Colonel Mustang’s face would look unimpressed to the untrained observer, but his team knew how to play his games, and could tell by the slight tightening of his upper lip that he was enjoying what was going on. That was all the encouragement any of them needed, and Fuery offed a little, supportive smile while Jean hopped up to join his friend in hanging off the newbie.

The added weight was enough. With a muted snarl, the boy shook off both of his accessories.

“I’ve got work to do. ‘Sides, alcohol kills brain cells. Everyone knows that.” No one moved to correct him. “I’m gonna go read in the library. We done here?” Fullmetal shot a glance toward Flame.

“If you’ll just wait a few more minutes, Ed, I would like to show you around the rest of headquarters.” The colonel was doing that thing where his words were so rhythmic that it became obvious he had been rehearsing them. Most likely, he had planned out exactly what he wanted to show ‘Ed’. The tour would be a thing a beauty.

“Nah. I’m good. ‘Snot like I’ll be going anywhere but here.” And the kid was already out the door before another syllable could fall from his commanding officer’s lips. Colonel Mustang looked like a kid deprived of candy, and for a moment Kain considering asking for the tour himself.

But that would make him look like an overeager child, and he was older than that. He would _not_ be the baby of the office anymore.

*~*~*

A few months passed. Every now and again, the storm known as Major Edward Elric came sweeping through the office. Always too busy for drinks, or lunch, or betting pools. The office was more of a pit stop for him and Al as they made their way toward better things.

Kain also watched as the initial joy the colonel showed at having a prodigy under his command waned into tired exasperation. Every report of exploding property, every insult hurled across a desk marked a step further away from the perfect subordinate Roy Mustang had been picturing.

As for excited chair-bouncing and overwhelming hero worship for his CO, Kain was doing okay. He forgot every now and again, but for the most part he was well on his way to adulthood.

*~*~*

Major Elric had been gone for three weeks. It was his longest mission so far. When he came back, the slamming of the office door seemed to be slightly toned down. His smile looked forced. Jean’s invitation to lunch was turned down much more harshly than usual. A glance at the colonel showed that Kain wasn’t the only one who had noticed. The silver fountain pen in his commanding officer’s hand was tapping out an uneven rhythm on the desktop: a sure sign of stress.

Elric dropped a crumpled stack of papers onto Mustang’s desk (Kain felt a sudden flash of pity for whoever was in charge of sorting those things) and stalked back out of the office. An uneasy silence was left in his wake.

“I’ll go after him.” Kain wasn’t sure where the words had come from, but he certainly couldn’t go back on them now. Jean and Breda were shooting him relieved smiles, while Hawkeye gave a jerky nod of support. Colonel Mustang waved his hand toward the door, trying to act casual about the whole thing. With the goodwill of his team behind him, there was really no other choice but for Fuery to slowly walk toward the door. Because his days of scampering toward a job like this were long behind him.

The corridor was empty. As were all the other hallways of the building Colonel Mustang’s office was in. It was about then that Kain realized he didn’t know where the brothers lived. By the time he had checked in with the secretaries, waited for them to stop talking long enough to pull up records, and made his way to the dorm room, over an hour had passed from the beginning of the self-inflicted mission.

He knocked.

The door did not open.

He knocked again.

A muttered _come’n_ sounded through the wood paneling.

Cautiously, Kain eased the door open and stepped into the room. His first thought was that it was surprisingly bare. There was no mess. No decorations. In fact, the only objects in the room, aside from the standard furniture provided by the military, were a battered suitcase leaning against the wall and a stack of books by the bed.

A bed upon which sprawled the Fullmetal Alchemist, wrapped around a glass bottle.

“What are you doing?!” His voice did _not_ squeak. It was flat and angry and commanding. An adult voice. Yeah.

“’M killin’ brain cells. Wassit look like ‘m doin?” And the kid laughed like his had just told a hilarious joke.

“But you’re underage!” Not the biggest issue here, actually, but Kain’s mouth was clearly not listening to his brain today. No reason to break the trend now.

“In the mil-try. Pulled some threads. No, wait. Pulled the things that’re _like_ threads, but different.” The kid gave a sharp nod and slumped against his headboard. It occurred to Fuery that drinking out with friends and drinking alone in a room while underage were two very different things.

This was not Kain’s area of expertise. Lightweight that he was, he was always far past this point before anyone else around him even got tipsy. If he were being honest with himself, he couldn’t remember the last time he had been around a drunk person while sober. Surely Jean or Breda would be better suited to dealing with this. But they weren’t here. And Kain was an adult. Squaring his shoulders and figuring he couldn’t make the situation much _worse_ , Fuery walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Hey. Major Elric.” Two slightly unfocused, golden eyes fastened on his face. “What brought this on?”

“Nothing brought it on!” The kid let out a laugh that was decidedly more cynical that the one from a few minutes ago. “Everythin’s fine. ‘S fine. Fine fine fine. ‘Got a perf-tly fucton, functin – _fuck_ \- _functional_ body. Who cares what happ’ns to an’one else? They can all rot for’ll the good I can do. ’S the point ‘n tryin to change stuff when you c’n do fuck-all about it?” After his short speech, the boy fell silent, squinting at the unlabeled bottled of alcohol as if it had just done something suspicious.

“Major? What _is_ it that you are trying to do?” So sue Kain if he tried to get a little information out of the kid while this was happening. Everyone at the office was trying to figure out just why he was here in the first place, and what goal kept him so busy. Besides, he reasoned, as of right now the kid’s ramblings were making little to no sense, and knowing his end goal might help.

“Tryin ta, ta fix my mistake. ‘S my fault. My sin.” Now the liquid in the bottle was being swirled in angry circles as the young major became agitated. “’M bein dumb righ now. I gotta fix it either way or there’s no _point_. ‘S just… ‘S just.” Here he lashed out with a fist and struck the wall before taking a swig from the bottle. It occurred to Kain then that he probably should have taken the alcohol away from the minor. “’S just takin _so much longer_ than I thought it would.”

A golden head fell to rest against the wall. Kain caught the bottle before it could tip off the bed. Ignoring the vague whimpers and grasping motions from the kid, he set the bottle on the floor.

“Okay, um, Major Elric?” The kid sort of shifted his head against the wall and Kain took that as acknowledgement. “I know I might be overstepping my bounds, but you know that the whole team is there for you, right?” Was this too much? Where were Havoc and Breda when you needed them? “We all care about you and your brother, and we want you to do well. If you ever need help, we would all be willing to drop everything for you two.”

Sometime during this declaration, the major tilted his head to watch Kain warily. Now that he had finished, the kid looked confused.

“Why?” And finally, finally, here was a question Fuery could answer.

“Because you’re part of Colonel Mustang’s team now. And we look after each other.”

Major Elric hummed suspiciously and slumped down the wall. His eyes were tracing a lazy track around the room and he unconsciously nuzzled into the pillow. Half-asleep like this, the boy looked to be about nine years old, and Kain felt a sudden flash of doubt and anger directed at his commanding officer. What reason could there possibly be to recruit a child this young into the military? What could possibly justify such a complete destruction of childhood innocence?

_But then_ , he thought as he pulled a blanket up to cover the boy, _he’s not really much of a child._ After all, what kind of twelve year old boy would willingly go on mission after mission, sitting on trains for hours on end, and not get bored? What kind of twelve year old boy felt the need to drink his problems away when things started to take longer than expected? Speaking of which, what on earth could possibly be so important that it could hold a child’s attention so thoroughly?

But at the same time, the kid was hot headed, impulsive, and at times painfully naïve. Oftentimes too much so to ever be considered an adult…

Old. That was the word Kain was looking for. Edward Elric was an old child.

“See you around, Major Elric.” He made his way back to the door, carrying a (thankfully) still fairly full bottle with him.

“D’nt call me that.” The words, difficult to understand before, were now muffled into a pillow.

“Huh?”

“Major Elric.” Here the boy snorted. “’M just Ed.”

“Okay, Ed. See you around.” And Fuery slipped out, easing the door closed behind him.

*~*~*

The door flew open after the force of Ed’s kick. He stood framed in the doorway, a smug grin etched on his face.

“Hey Boss.”

“Hey Ed.” Havoc and Breda called out their greetings before anyone else. When Ed glanced around the office, Fuery made sure to catch his eye and nod a greeting.

“The Colonel in?”

“He is.” Hawkeye joined in, smiling a bit. “Go right on in.” Ed started toward the inner door. “Oh, and Ed? Should we be expecting any disturbances?”

Ed shot her at larger grin over his shoulder. “Oh yeah. He’s gonna _hate_ this one.”

Havoc and Breda sprouted matching smirks. Hawkeye may or may not have rolled her eyes.

Fuery started to bounce in his seat.


End file.
